Finding the Best Campfire Sticks
Finding the best campfire sticks for roasting marshmallows and for lighting a fire
Call me basic, but any decent camping blog needs a tutorial on how to get good campfire sticks.
Whether store-bought or gathered while hiking, campfire sticks are an important component of any successful camping trip. Without a fire to tell stories around or to toast s’mores on, it’s not a real camping adventure!
Campfire sticks for the marshmallows
When you think of campfire sticks, you think of the long rods that cook marshmallows. Right?
For some people, buying marshmallow sticks is the most sanitary way to cook a marshmallow or hotdog. Rome’s Set of 9 Forks for Marshmallows and Hot Dogs is a great kit for any camping trip that can be reused again and again. If you don’t feel like cleaning your utensils, then you can buy some Wooden Marshmallow Sticks which generally come in a big pack for a small amount of money.
If you’re buying for the whole Dads & Kids Camping group, you can get them in bulk for very cheap (100 for about $100 bucks) from The Marshmallow Stick Company.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, you can gather camping sticks the old-fashioned way by finding your own in the woods. Here are the guidelines:
Use branches from healthy trees – dead branches catch fire more easily.
Don’t use branches from poisonous trees – a poison oak branch is a bad example of a marshmallow stick.
Burn the stick before you use it – sanitation by the flame can go a long way.
Campfire sticks for the campfire
There are many retailers that carry kindling and either artificial burners or natural wood is available. Two tips for this:
Make sure you bring enough wood to last the duration of the trip
Make sure you buy wood that is dry so that it will catch fire
Bring a fire-starting log in case the wood gets too wet from moisture overnight
More seasoned campers might prefer to gather their own wood. This is more cost-effective though also more time-consuming. If a hike through the woods is on the itinerary anyway, gathering campfire sticks while walking is a small inconvenience and can add to the sense of really roughing it out in the forest.
Either way there should be two different types of sticks that are targeted.
To start the fire requires smaller, extremely dry pieces of kindling. Pine is great for starting a fire because it burns hot and fast. Leaves can also be gathered along with the sticks to get the initial fire going.
Larger, denser pieces of wood can be added to the flames once the fire is truly lit. These will take more time to catch fire but will continue burning for far longer. The larger pieces should also be old dry wood since damp or green wood is more likely not to catch fire and may spit out flying sparks.
If not enough dry wood is found to last through the entire trip, make sure to start the fire off with the driest campfire sticks first. Then, keep the damp wood close to the fire so that it will slowly dry out without actually catching on fire itself.
As always, fire safety is incredibly important and at the end of a trip, campers must make sure any fire is completely extinguished before packing up and leaving. If proper safety procedures are followed, it won’t matter whether the campfire sticks are bought or gathered. They will contribute to a good time either way.
If you want to learn more about how to start your own Dads & Kids Camping Weekend, check out my 45-page Dads & Kids Camping Handbook.